Re: Pterofiltrus, new pterosaur from China

["Mark Witton" <Mark.Witton@port.ac.uk>]

— Rescued from the truncation monster —

--------------------------------------------------

Holy Hell: are there any Chinese pterosaur specimens that _haven't_ been named 
yet? 
 
With Pterofiltrus, we now have _six_ genera of ctenochasmatids from a single 
formation. Other single Chinese rock units also alleged to contain six 
Darwinopterus-type taxa, six tapejarids, five chaoyangopterids and seven 
istiodactylids (among others). This is vastly inflated compared to other 
formations - even rich lagerstatte like Solnhofen or the Smoky Hill Chalk - and 
the likelihood that we can actually recognise each taxon is slim once ontogeny, 
dimorphism, individual variation, taphonomy and diagenesis are taken into 
account. Such propensity for naming every _slightly different_ animal hasn't 
been seen since the 1800s, and it's making dealing with Chinese pterosaurs - an 
undeniably important resource - increasingly difficult. 
 
Mark

 
 
--

Dr. Mark Witton
www.markwitton.com 
Lecturer
Palaeobiology Research Group
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences
University of Portsmouth
Burnaby Building
Burnaby Road
Portsmouth
PO1 3QL

Tel: (44)2392 842418
E-mail: Mark.Witton@port.ac.uk 

If pterosaurs are your thing, be sure to pop by:

- Pterosaur.Net: www.pterosaur.net 
- The Pterosaur.Net blog: http://pterosaur-net.blogspot.com/ 
- My pterosaur artwork: www.flickr.com/photos/markwitton 
>>> Ben Creisler <bscreisler@yahoo.com> 01/12/2011 17:24 >>>
From: Ben Creisler
bscreisler@yahoo.com 

New online in the open access journal Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciencias: 

JIANG, Shunxing  and  WANG, Xiaolin (2011)
A new ctenochasmatid pterosaur from the Lower Cretaceous, western Liaoning, 
China.
Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciencias 83 (4): 1243-1249. ISSN 0001-3765.  
http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0001-37652011000400011.
http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0001-37652011000400011&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en
 
free pdf:   http://www.scielo.br/pdf/aabc/v83n4/10.pdf 

A nearly complete skull of a new ctenochasmatid pterosaur, Pterofiltrus qiui 
gen. et sp. nov., from the Lower Cretaceous deposits of Liaoning, China, is 
described here. The specimen (IVPP V12339), was collected from the shale of the 
lower Yixian Formation (125 Ma) at the Zhangjiagou locality. It has the 
following combination of characters: about 112 teeth in total (including the 
upper and lower jaws); the dentition occupies more than 50% of the skull 
length; the anterior teeth vary in size; the mandibular symphysis is longer 
than half of the whole mandible length; in ventral view, an apparent symphyseal 
trough in the median part of the symphysis.


Note: The name is misspelled in the actual abstract and key words as 
"Pterofiltus" but is officially Pterofiltrus in the body of the paper.